Need You
by Akidest
Summary: No one can separate these two...


Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/15748539.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: M/M Fandom: Katekyou Hitman Reborn! Relationship: Gokudera Hayato/Yamamoto Takeshi Character: Yamamoto Takeshi, Gokudera Hayato, Sawada Tsunayoshi Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Pre-mafia Stats: Published: 2018-08-20 Words: 6006 i'm lost (and i don't know why)

by raewastaken (IWriteLove)

Summary

Yamamoto wasn't an endgame friendship when Gokudera came to Japan - Yamamoto with his easy smiles and laid back approach to everything and fiery determination anytime he held a bat or sword, was not a part of the plan. Although, he'd be first to admit, not much of anything that happened was part of the plan.

Notes

i've been recently watching khr with my girlfriend over rabbit for date nights and ive ABSOLUTELY fallen in love with it! i still haven't finished the anime (we just got past the arcabaleno trials) but im absolutely head over heels in love with these two boys and tsuna, so i wrote something! thank you to my friend amber for beta-ing this!

See the end of the work for more notes

Gokudera tries to adjust to Yamamoto - really, he _does_. He knows the Tenth would try to call bullshit, with how often he's going on about how Yamamoto's just a baseball brain (was he _wrong?)_ , but it's true. He knows over the years, the irritation and annoyance he felt toward him, with his constant attempts to cozy up to Tsuna, him always being that step ahead of him in training, faded away slowly, piece by piece, until nothing was left but the shell of frustration he used to feel. He chalked it up to what they had gone through, the countless times they had almost died, all the injuries, sharing bed spaces yards apart and having no one to talk to but each other until Tsuna checked on them in the morning. Yamamoto wasn't an endgame friendship when Gokudera came to Japan - he anticipated the Tenth, absolutely, but Yamamoto with his easy smiles and laid back approach to everything and fiery determination anytime he held a bat or sword, was not a part of the plan. Although, he'd be first to admit, not much of anything that happened was part of the plan.

Gokudera does what he does best after The Incident with the Millefiore - he takes it, and he puts it in a box far from his immediate train of thought, and stops thinking about it. They're well into highschool and on more than one occasion he's caught Yamamoto standing back to linger in the doorway of his dad's sushi shop, watching him cut fish like he'd never see him again. Or all those late nights he wakes up to texts because Yamamoto can't sleep (again), and is asking him about pointless bullshit to keep himself preoccupied. Gokudera can feel for him, he really can - he knows Yamamoto can't think like him, that he hasn't grown up with this sort of crushing feeling his entire life. So he learns to distract Yamamoto with conversation just enough to keep him moving out the door, keeps his phone on a low volume that'll be just enough to pull him out of sleep if Yamamoto needs something. He doesn't know when he's gotten so _soft_.

(A boss, a family, the _Vongola_ were part of the plan, not this. Not late night phone calls with shaky sighs and awkward laughter and Yamamoto's soft voice saying "I can let you go to bed-" and earning a snort and a sarcastic "I wasn't going to sleep anyway, just talk about baseball" before he falls into a comfortable quiet as he rambles. Not with Gokudera becoming so intimately familiar with Yamamoto's patterns of nightmares that he jumps the gun and invites him over for movies on nights when he knows they'll be the worst - lets him fall asleep halfway through _Signs_ and doesn't even complain about it. Not with the silent sort of understanding they exchange in quiet huffs that might be sobs late at night on the phone, when they've both had the unfortunate luck of landing dreams that include Tsuna - the horrible gut wrenching feeling of failure, of _never_ wanting to repeat mistakes they hadn't even made in the first place.)

(He never plans for Yamamoto, for the silent comfort, for the way he just _gets it_ , for him to be so adaptable and talented despite his goofy and air headed personality, for his voice to be the only thing that manages to lull him into sleep-)

Yamamoto gets drafted for baseball.

Gokudera doesn't let the shock get to his face, although it feels like a rock's been thrown right as his chest, and he's been on the _edge of death_ but this feels like the worst thing in the world. There's a thousand things he wants to say, a variety of emotions he's feeling, but he can't wrap his head around much other than " _What_?"

He shifts, uncomfortably, his brown eyes darting away as he rubs the back of his head, fingers through his short hair - his unspoken anxious quirk (when did Gokudera start studying him enough to know this?). Tsuna hasn't said a word yet, and it's been almost a minute. "Um. Baseball. It-It's just minor league. In America. But apparently they think I'm good enough to try me out right out of high school-"

"America?" Tsuna finally squeaks out. Gokudera's eyes don't leave Yamamoto, but Yamamoto won't look at him. "Baseball all the way in America?"

"Yeah! I-I mean… Yeah," he dials back his excitement. There's something bittersweet about it. Gokudera's hands start shaking under the table and he clutches at his jeans to keep them still. "I haven't given them any solid answer. Dad and I… we're trying to plan it out before I throw myself into it."

"That's… smart," Tsuna says, although it sounds forced. The room around him - Tsuna's bedroom, a place he's spent so much time in he could tell you how many popcorn paint patches were on the ceiling - suddenly feel suffocating, small and claustrophobic in a way it never has. "Um. Do you want to say yes? I-I mean if it can work out?"

Yamamoto finally lifts his eyes, and meets Gokudera's. There's a look in them he can't place, but Yamamoto turns to look at Tsuna before he can. "Yeah. I'd like to."

 _He wants to go to America for baseball_ , screams his brain.

"You should," Tsuna tells him gently. "At least try it out. You've wanted to do something like this since we were kids."

 _He wants to go to America for baseball._

"Yeah, I definitely would like to make it work." An awkward laugh.

 _America. For baseball. Away from us. Away from m-_

"Gokudera?"

He snaps out of it. Tsuna is staring at him with wide eyes, and Yamamoto looks like a cat that's gotten the cream and a kicked puppy at all once. It's irritating, in a hollow, familiar way. It's all he knows. It's the only thing he can do to handle the storm in his fucking chest.

"Yeah. Baseball, cool," he forces out, then closes his textbook and grabs his notes. "I gotta go. Bianchi's out for the night so someone's gotta be home before dark."

"Oh- uh- of course! I-I'll see you out." Tsuna scrambles up from the table, and Yamamoto rises slower. They walk him downstairs, say their goodbyes while he pulls his shoes on. When Gokudera looks back, Yamamoto's got his brows furrowed in a way he hadn't seen in a long time, and it hurts his ribs.

He wraps the conversation up in a neat package and stuffs it to the back of brain where all the things he doesn't want to face go, knowing he'd have to pull it out again sometime.

* * *

They don't talk about it for months. It hangs over them silently, like a quiet death creeping up on them that they can't avoid, but don't want to acknowledge. Tsuna made peace with Yamamoto leaving two weeks after he broke the news to him, but the closer and closer they get to the end of high school, to the summer, to the day Yamamoto flies out of Japan, the more Yamamoto's personality feels like it dulls and it's fucking abysmal. It makes it feel like someone really is dying instead of just leaving the country for a while (Years? Decades? Forever?), and he hates the way it sets him on edge. Tsuna plays up his personality to compensate, while Gokudera's content to just letting Yamamoto make the entire energy feel miserable if it's what he so fucking wishes. It's his cake and he can fucking eat it, too. It's an angry pulse just under his skin that finally makes him realize how empty he starts to feel the more Yamamoto retreats from him, and it's before class one day that he finally has an explanation for _why_ (he didn't want one, for fucks sake).

Yamamoto walks in with dark circles under his eyes, worse than Gokudera had ever seen them before. His hair is still a bedhead mess and uniform is wrinkled like it had been on the floor all night and he just grabbed it to wear. Gokudera stares at him as he walks in, eyes trained to the floor and movements slow and sluggish, and takes his seat behind Tsuna, Tsuna turning to talk to him quietly. Gokudera can't hear them from his place a few rows away, but he sees the way Yamamoto's eyes refuse to meet Tsuna's, how they look unfocused as he nods or shakes his head to the questions he knows the Tenth must be grilling him with. He doesn't stop staring, even as Yamamoto lifts his eyes and they meet, and he realizes three things all at once. First being Yamamoto had been looking especially pale and sleep deprived all week, laughing it off as it being because of the baseball thing, so it's where Gokudera had checked out. Second being that he was suddenly aware of the fact that it had been _weeks_ since Gokudera had forced himself into sitting on the phone late at night with Yamamoto. Third being - oh _holy fuck_ he was crying.

He hauls himself up right as the bell rings. Everyone turns to stare at him with confused and exhausted looks, wishing he'd just let the rest of the school year pass without another incident, including the teacher. "Yes, Gokuder-"

"Yamamoto and I have something we have to do," he blurts quickly. Yamamoto lifts his head off his desk slightly, curled fists finding his eyes subtly. He doesn't move his gaze from the teacher. "It's for the baseball team. I said I'd help him. We totally forgot."

The teacher looks like he wants to argue, tired of Gokudera's attitude and mouth and grades, but they're a month away from never stepping foot in the building again, so his shoulders fall. "Fine. Don't be too long."

Gokudera tears his gaze back to Yamamoto and Tsuna, who look equally lost, and says "C'mon, baseball brain," before he grabs his bag and heads out the classroom. He waits outside of the door for a moment before Yamamoto's footfalls follow him, and they head down the hall in silence. It's not the same kind of silence they'd share over the phone, both too exhausted and traumatized to speak - it's tense, awkward, like the air as it rains before a storm. He has to stop thinking in analogies like that.

"I don't remember saying we'd help the team today-"

"We're not."

Yamamoto's steps falter just enough that Gokudera knows he lost his footing on a step. "Wait wha-"

They're halfway down the stairway. Gokudera turns to face him, looking up at him from where he's standing with one foot on flat ground, the other on a step two up. Yamamoto's eyes are wide and bright. "When was the last time you slept?"

Silence falls over them again. Yamamoto's brows knit together. "Is that what this is abou-"

"You look like shit, Yamamoto," he says without fanfare, not bothering to gauge the other's reaction. "Your hair is a mess, your uniform is worse, you've got circles under your eyes so dark you'd give Hibari's personality a run for its money-"

"Wow, fucking re-"

"Shut up," Gokudera snaps. Yamamoto's mouth closes around words he didn't speak. "Just. Answer the fucking question."

Yamamoto stares down at him. It makes Gokudera feel big and small all at once. He hates how vulnerable _that_ makes him feel. "Last night."

"When was the last time you slept more than four hours?"

The silence hangs over them again for a beat. "The Tuesday before last."

 _Christ_. He grabs his wrist - his _wrist_ \- and heads down the stairs again, dragging him behind him. "There's a storage room they store the old nurse's office beds in. You're going to sleep whether you like it or not."

"We're skipping class so I can sleep?"

Gokudera makes a sound instead of answering.

Yamamoto skids them to a stop, still surprisingly strong despite how little sleep he had been getting. Gokudera spins to say something, but stops short when he registers just how _fucking tired_ Yamamoto looks, the furrow of his brow, the wetness still on his lashes. "Gokudera, I don't need to skip class to sleep-"

"Are you sure, because you're not sleeping at night-"

"Well no, but-"

"You can't function like a broken robot-"

"I'm not, just-"

"You _need_ to sleep-"

Yamamoto pulls his wrist back and says "I just need to talk to you at night and I'll be fine" at the same time. Gokudera feels frozen in place, and is thankful Yamamoto continues and doesn't expect him to say anything. "I slept better when we were calling every night and just talking. After nightmares, before nightmares, whatever. I just - I _needed_ someone who had gone through it, too. That I wasn't fucking losing it. That I'm not still fucking losing it."

Gokudera wants to ask why he didn't call Tsuna. Or Ryohei. Or Chrome or Hibari or Lambo. Haru, Kyoko, Reborn. Why _him_ , out of everyone? But he doesn't. He bites his tongue and stares at him. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

Their eyes don't meet. Yamamoto preoccupies himself with a speck on the ground while Gokudera shuffles through a flash card index of responses he thinks would be appropriate here. "You're not losing it," is what he settles on, and wants to kick himself in the teeth. _Nice social skills, Hayato._

But it gets Yamamoto to look at him, at least. "What?"

"You're not losing it, Yamamoto. You weren't and you still aren't. It was real, it was so fucking real, and the nightmares feel real and they're soul crushing and leave me paralyzed when I wake up, and if that's what they do to you, too, then I can't fucking blame you for never sleeping and-" His ramble comes to a stuttering stop. He starts flipping through responses again. _I'll never let you suffer alone again_ or _I would do anything to keep you from having them_ \- and he settles on. "I'll start calling you again."

The smile he earns in return makes his chest feel like a cage of butterflies swarming to be let out. "Yeah, okay."

"Tonight," Gokudera assures him, robotically.

"Tonight," Yamamoto reaffirms quietly.

They head back to class, and Gokudera stuffs the feeling in his ribs into another box.

* * *

 _Buzz_.

Gokudera shifts in bed, grabs his phone from next to him and hits answer without looking at the screen. The alarm clock on the nightstand reads 2:19am, and he knows he's only slept a few hours. He tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes. "Yeah?"

The response he gets is a shaky, watery sigh. "H-Hey," Yamamoto says quietly. Gokudera gets himself comfy, knows this is going to be a rough one. "S-Sorry for waking you up-"

"Stop apologizing," Gokudera mutters, but it doesn't have the heat behind it. He rubs his eyes. "Which one was it this time?"

Yamamoto leaves in two weeks. Gokudera pretends like he's come to terms with it and moved on like Tsuna, but he knows he's fucking lying to himself and everyone else. While the Tenth talks visits - flying out there, Yamamoto flying back here, costs, details, everything in between - Gokudera tries to ignore how his ribs feel like a vice grip around his lungs at the idea of Yamamoto actually, seriously, not being by their side anymore. For all the shit he gives him, all the grief and the irritated words, the raised voices and exasperated sighs, he feels numb at the idea of an empty space being opened up in his life by Yamamoto leaving - a space he didn't know was empty until Yamamoto filled it in the first place, unexpectedly, against the plan. So he tries to push it back, talks about it at the absolute minimum, and pretends like his dreams don't include Yamamoto leaving and never returning to them.

He comes back to himself at Yamamoto's laugh, that half sounds like a sob. "I… Uh. It was just bad…" he stutters out. Gokudera knows some of the nightmares aren't the ones you talk about it - he respects it. "Um. I-I need to get out of my room. Fresh air and all. Uh. Do you want to meet up at the playground?"

Gokudera stares at his clock. It's 2:24 in the morning. He has an interview tomorrow at some random grocery store he sent an application to at Tsuna's request, and knows he should sleep. "Yeah," he tells him softly, still working his brain out of sleep mode and hoping his body would follow. "Yeah. I'll meet you there in a few."

Yamamoto sniffles into the phone, and Gokudera's heart feels like it's lodged in his throat. "Okay, yeah. See you in a few."

They hang up. Gokudera throws back his blankets and grabs his jeans off the floor and his shirt he wore a few days ago, pulling his hair back into a ponytail. Wallet. Keys. Phone. He slips his shoes on and heads out quietly, not wanting to wake up Bianchi, then starts walking toward the playground, a familiar path he's taken thanks to Lambo and I-Pin. It's nice outside, cool and just barely breezy, the sky clear and full of stars, and Gokudera wonders why he's never appreciated Namimori and all it's simply pleasures before now. He hums at the thought, then walks up to the park, unsurprised when he sees Yamamoto sitting on one of the swings, idly pushing himself back and forth.

"Hey," he says, walking up to him with his heart aching in his chest because he looks _fucking exhausted_ , and Yamamoto looks up at him. "Picked a good night to need fresh air."

Yamamoto stares at him like he's speaking another language, then smiles - it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Hey. Yeah," he said quietly, looking away again. Gokudera sits in the swing next to him, gripping the chains like they were a life line in this conversation. Something heavy settles between them. "Thanks for… coming out here with me."

"Don't mention it," Gokudera says. They sit in silence as the breeze rustles at the trees. "Was it that bad?"

He gets a hum in return, Yamamoto kicking up sand. "Yeah," he mumbles. "It was."

Gokudera knows he's not good at this - at physically trying to be a good source of comfort. He's always been better with the distracting kind of comfort, or the kind where he didn't have to say a damn thing. It was always Tsuna who was better at this than him, could talk them down and soothe their bruised egos and keep whatever was floating around in their heads at bay. But goddammit, he's gonna try. "Do you want to talk about it? I get it if you don't. Some of that shit you just… don't say aloud."

It goes quiet. Gokudera pushes himself back and forth with his feet while he waits, nervous energy pulsing with his blood at this point. He wants to get up and walk around, kick something, fidget with his lighter until all the paint chips off the sides. But he doesn't - he just waits. And he was never good at waiting.

"You died," is what Yamamoto says, after a few minutes of tense silence between them. Gokudera's head whips around and stares him down, but Yamamoto's eyes are trained at the ground - there's tears forming in the corners. "I-It's usually Tsuna. But it was you this time."

"Y-Yamamoto-"

"I just stood there. And watched, because I couldn't do anything to stop it. A-And when I looked up at who had-" He stops, his breath shaky. One of his hands moves to his face, wipes at his cheeks. "It was me. Fucking-" Laughter, verging on sarcastic, on hurt, on anger. Gokudera can't pull his eyes away from this trainwreck right in front of him. "I was the one who killed you and-"

Gokudera reaches over, taking his hand, squeezes. He wants to lace their fingers together, but he doesn't.

"Hey. Come back to reality," he tells him. "It was just a dream. I'm fine. You didn't do anything."

Yamamoto doesn't look at him, staring at the ground, but squeezing Gokudera's hand back tight. "Y-Yeah," he sniffles, using his other hand to wipe at his eyes. His fingers are tight around Gokudera's, like if he let go his dream would become a reality. Gokudera squeezes back to reassure him. "I… It just got to me."

"I know how that feels."

They sit in silence for a moment, sniffles and the rustle of leaves and the sounds of their shoes crunching against the sand under them filling the air around them. Finally, Yamamoto lets his hand go gently, and clears his throat. "I leave in two weeks."

Gokudera bites the inside of his cheek, curls his hands around the swing chains hard. "Yeah," he forces himself to say.

"You never mention it. I… I wasn't sure you knew."

"Yeah. I know." It feels like a bite when he does.

Yamamoto sways back on his swing. "Why don't… you want to talk about it?"

 _Because if I talk about it, it'll become so real it'll leave me breathless and unable to cope with the idea of you not being on the other end of the phone in a heartbeat, not next to my side all the time, not filling the air around me with that silent comfort you're so damn good at, and_ God _you're so fucking dense-_

"Gokudera?"

Gokudera looks at him. Yamamoto's looking back, eyes no longer wet from silent tears, but full of a determination that he saves for baseball, for Tsuna. Resolve, like Gokudera's never seen him with outside of battle and the field. He swallows, hard, painfully, around a lump in his throat. "Because I can't."

"Why-"

The words are right there, right _fucking_ there, on the tip of his tongue and Yamamoto's seen so many sides of his emotional vulnerability already what's a few more-

"Because I don't want you to go."

 _I want I want I want- I want you to stay._

"Oh."

Gokudera doesn't move - he wants to move, wants to run, wants to shut himself in his room and hide under the blankets and never face Yamamoto again. There's an ache in his chest, an ache that turns into an emptiness, that feels like it's always been there but he's just never faced it before now - and now it feels like it's overcoming him, leaving his heart hurting and breathe short, and hands shaking on the metal chains he's gripping like a lifeline. "I don't want you to go to America. Just the idea of you not occupying the empty space I never knew was empty makes me feel lost and I don't know why I feel lost. A-And I don't want to never know when you're not coming back, or when I'll get to talk to you again, o-or or-"

Yamamoto moves from his swing and comes in front of him, and Gokudera pushes himself back a bit, and then- they're pressing their lips together, and Yamamoto is clutching his shoulders, and fuck, _fuck_. Gokudera moves his hands to Yamamoto's hair, pulling him down closer, sliding their lips together, his chest coming alive for the first time in months. It was everything he was missing, and didn't know - coming home, but he didn't know this was home. They pull back, looking at each for a beat, a moment filled with their soft breathing and the sound of the wind, the squeak of Yamamoto's swing rocking back and forth. "Come with me," he tells him.

"W-"

"Come with me. To America. Just stay there for a while. Not forever. Just long enough."

"Bu-"

"Please," Yamamoto's voice tetters on tears again. There's so much more emotion in this conversation than Gokudera's used to - for once he's okay being submerged in it. He can feel his own tears in his eyes. "Just for a little while."

Realistically, he can't - interviews, jobs, sorting out Vongola stuff with Tsuna, Tsuna in general. Life isn't a romcom, where he can just drop everything and go. But Yamamoto's looking at him like nothing else in this fucking world matters, and his throat is closing up around words he wants to stay, to scream, to let the universe know, _good fucking god he was in love with this idiot_. He knows he can't, he shouldn't, it's not practical-

"Okay," he whispers. Any louder, and the bubble would pop. They'd be back in reality. This moment would be over. "Okay. I want to, yes, okay-"

They meet for another kiss, and Gokudera knocks over every box in his brain.

* * *

Gokudera goes to America, he stays for two weeks. He helps Yamamoto get settled in to his temp apartment, sits with him the hardwood floor while they eat pizza and watch videos on his phone, helps him carry in and put together furniture his dad helped him save up for. They don't talk about the night at the playground, but their hands find each other while they sit for breaks between unpacking and assembly, their shoulders brush together as they move around each other in the kitchen making breakfast and lunch. Yamamoto hovers next to him in grocery stores while Gokudera debates one thing over the other. Gokudera wears his shirts because his closet is right there, tells himself he's too lazy to pull clothes from his bag. They share a bed. They share the couch. They brush their teeth side by side at night. The ambiguity of _them_ wants to make Gokudera scream, but it settles between the gaps of his bones like a familiarity - it was so _them_ it could hurt.

He doesn't think about the plane ride back to Japan at the end of his two weeks. Yamamoto's due to start baseball after he leaves, so they soak up as much time together as they can, exploring the city around Yamamoto's place, eating food they've never tried, video calling with Tsuna when they have a chance. It's all so very domestic in a way Gokudera's never known, never felt, and the idea of leaving it - leaving the comfort, the warmth, the feeling of home - hurts. It _hurts_.

"Do you think I'll be happy out here?"

Gokudera turns to look at him. They're sitting on opposite ends of the couch, watching something on Yamamoto's laptop sitting on the coffee table. It's dark outside, crickets screaming right outside of the windows. Yamamoto's been quiet for hours, to the point where Gokudera thought he had fallen asleep. He makes a face. "What?"

Yamamoto returns the look. It sends a shiver down Gokudera's spine. "Do you think I'll be happy here. Playing baseball. So far from home."

"I…" he trips over what he wants to say a bit right out the gate. The question feels like he got hit across the head with a bat, and he stares, dazed, for a moment. "Y-Yeah? I mean. You love baseball. You're gonna get homesick, sure, but this is what you want more than anything." His heart screams at the words as he says them - _more than you more than you_ \- but he ignores it. "You'll be happy here, Yamamoto."

Yamamoto watches him for a moment, then pulls his eyes away from Gokudera. He props his elbow up onto the couch, hums into his palm as he holds his head. "Yeah," he mumbles, eyes far off and lost. "You're right."

 _I should ask if he thinks he will be._

Gokudera doesn't ask.

* * *

It's a chilly, wet morning when Gokudera flies back to Japan. His anxiety (always there, humming just under his pulse, but more manageable than anything Tsuna's had to live with) gets him up two hours before his alarm, forcing him to watch headlights dance across the walls through the blinds, and shadows crawl over Yamamoto's sleeping face. It's a hollow ring in his chest, akin to love, when he watches him, knowing it'd be the last time he saw him in person for god knows how long, and he tries not to think about it.

He gets to the airport hours before his flight. Yamamoto walks him as far as security before he pulls him into a tight embrace, hands shaking just barely against his lower back where they rest. Gokudera wraps his arms around his neck, pressing his face into his shoulder, pretends it's just them for a moment - no one waiting for them, nothing needing their attention, no responsibilities. But Yamamoto pulls back, looks at him long and hard, then smiles. Gokudera feels like he's being torn apart all over again. "See you soon?"

"Y-Yeah," Gokudera croakes out, throat scratchy and eyes starting to sting. "Soon."

They awkwardly shuffle their feet for a moment, before an overhead voice starts lecturing on airport security, and Gokudera takes half a step away. Away from Yamamoto, from his comfort, from what feels like half his fucking heart. "I'll text you when I land."

"Yeah."

Gokudera turns his back, vision blurring, and heads through security with his eyes trained down. He grabs breakfast and some coffee before he heads to his gate, tries to ignore how his heart really does feel like it's been shattered and taped back together worse than before, tries to kill his time doing something other than crying while he waits. Two hours. One hour. Fifteen minutes, when they start to call for boarding.

If this was a romance movie, if Gokudera was the down-on-his-luck protagonist, and Yamamoto was his endearing but dense love interest, he know this is when he'd hear Yamamoto's voice yelling across the terminal, see him running toward him, face flushed and eyes determined. That he'd stop him from boarding the plan, confess his undying love for him right there in the middle of fucking boarding, kiss him breathless until all Gokudera could think of was him. Then he'd ask him to stay, stay in America, to never leave him. And Gokudera - reckless, impulsive, so in love it genuinely _hurt_ \- would say yes, in tears, laughing.

Gokudera glances over his shoulder as he steps into the bridge. The normal traffic of the airport is behind him.

There's no Yamamoto.

* * *

Seventeen hours later, and Gokudera steps off the plane.

It's well past midnight. His back is stiff, he's sore, his eyes ache from where he had been silently crying after finding out his row mates never showed, and his head spins at the time difference he has to adapt to for the second time in two weeks. Everything in him screams to get home, shower and then sleep - especially before he thought about how empty he felt and started crying again. God, he was never the crying type. What the fuck was going on.

He takes his phone out and types out a message to Tsuna that he knows he won't read until the morning, updates Bianchi, sends a picture of the baggage carousel to Yamamoto with an emoji of the Japanese flag, because the words he wants to say would make him tear up right now, then rubs his eyes with his sleeve.

What was going on with him? Gokudera knew he was never the happiest person in the world, but stepping on that plane in America drained something out of him he didn't know he ever even had. He already felt like he was being torn into two, but now it felt like not only did he leave half his heart with Yamamoto, but half of himself, too. The world around him felt washed out, conversations muffled and nothing more than incomprehensible chatter in his ears. His movements felt robotic, like he was just going through motions rather than consciously deciding to do anything. And his brain - good fucking god; if he thought about Yamamoto for any longer than two seconds, he know he'd want to curl up into his bed and never see the light of day again. His thoughts were just a skipping record scratch of their hands meeting, their shoulders bumping together, Yamamoto almost tripping over a curb and Gokudera laughing so hard he almost peed himself. Them sitting awake in bed, too scare of the potential nightmares to sleep, talking about their childhoods, about their futures, about the future they worked to prevent. A slideshow of all the things he'd hold so dear to his heart until he saw Yamamoto again, but would make him ache for weeks until he moved on from this feeling. He feels stupid - nowhere did they address _them_ , yet he feels like he's gotten broken up with in the most painful way possible.

God, he needs a cigarette.

Gokudera heads out of the airport, checking his phone. Nothing from Yamamoto. He frowns and puts it away, slipping it into his jacket pocket, ignoring the feeling in his chest as he plans how to get home -

He hears the quick rush of foot falls behind him -

 _Taxi? Train? A mix of both?_ -

He turns, in slow motion, eyes wide -

 _How to get home -_

"Wha-"

Yamamoto crashes into him, almost knocking them both over, his arms tight around him - even tighter than the airport when he left - panting against his hair. Gokudera doesn't move, doesn't blink, or breathe, or think. Was he so tired he was hallucinating? It takes Yamamoto squeezing him to answer the question for him, and Gokudera lets out a choked back sound that's not quite a sob, wrapping his arms around him in return, burying his face into his shoulder. "W-What the f-fuck-"

"I couldn't do it," he says in reply. "I booked my flight after you left through security."

"Y-Yamam-"

"I love baseball. I want to play it more than almost anything else. But I wouldn't be happy there."

Gokudera's head spins. His heart is a beautiful, aching, pounding mess. He's a mess.. "Y-You-"

"I'll be happy here. I want you more."

The dam breaks. He lets out a sob that threatens to break his ribs and clutches at the back of Yamamoto's jacket. Here. Him. Here in Japan. With him. _Him_. He wanted _him_ more than _baseball_. "Y-You fucking i-idiot-"

Yamamoto laughs, watery, into his hair. "I know-"

"Y-You're a fucking idiot." It doesn't bite. It's hard to bite when you're sobbing. "You're so fucking stupid and I-I _love_ you so fucking much-"

He _loves_ him. So _much_.

"I love you, too, Gokudera," Yamamoto says back. Oh, for fuck's sake- "I really do."

Gokudera pulls back, using his sleeve to dry his eyes and cheeks, then glares at him. If it's even half as intimidating as he was hoping, it doesn't show on Yamamoto's face. "You couldn't have said sometime in the past two weeks?"

Yamamoto flushes - honest to god goes _red_ \- and looks away. "I… Probably."

 _He's so stupid, and he's all you want_. Gokudera puts his hands on Yamamoto's cheeks and pulls him down into a kiss that's uncomfortably close to their teeth slamming together, but it just barely misses it. Yamamoto makes a sound into his mouth, resting his hands on his waist, when Gokudera moves away. "You're impossible."

The smile - oh _god_ his smile - is worth it. It's so worth it.

* * *

Yamamoto moves his furniture to Japan. He cancels the lease on his temp apartment, resigns from the minor league team he signed with. He says it doesn't bother him, that he's not sad. Gokudera believes him - Yamamoto's not lying.

* * *

They buy a two bedroom apartment in Namimori with Tsuna. Yamamoto teaches baseball to kids at Namimori middle. Tsuna smiles at them as they cook shoulder to shoulder, bicker playfully (lovingly) with each other.

* * *

Even as things pick up with the Vongola, they stay together. "I've never wanted anything as much as I want this," Yamamoto tells him. Gokudera smacks his face with a pillow, red and teary eyed, and tells him to stop being a sappy idiot.

* * *

Gokudera's happy all the things he never planned for when he first came to Japan worked out like this.

End Notes

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